Robocop inhaled some hydrogen and then drew this.

As anyone who’s ever bought an Apple product knows, sometimes the box is nearly as nifty as what’s inside. This certainly applies to Honda’s eye-catching FCEV concept, which debuts at the L.A. auto show wearing an interesting wrapper with clever engineering underneath. Automakers’ fledgling hydrogen-fueled rides have, for the most part, been regular cars with a high-tech power system transplant. Honda, for its, part, has spent its roughly 20 years of fuel-cell development creating standalone fuel-cell vehicles. First came the FCX in the early aughts; it was followed by the more polished FCX Clarity. Next year, Honda will bring an all-new fuel-cell car to market as a 2015 model, and the FCEV concept likely previews that car—and we hope it does.

FCEV, You and Me

We’re not sure the FCEV is good-looking in the traditional sense, but perhaps the futuristic styling can’t be judged on traditional terms. It isn’t your average jelly-bean eco-car, either. The hood is short and angled such that it flows with very nearly no kink into the steeply raked windshield and roof. Honda’s corporate “face” has been applied, but the headlight/pseudo-grille combination is thin and seemingly entirely backlit. It sits between a pair of chiseled “brackets” that frame the front end; it reminds us of the latest Cadillac CTS’s LED running lights and headlight accents that strongly define its front corners and give the frontal view the impression of power.

The roof is low, and the rear window—if you can call it that—is nearly horizontal. Honda even found a way to make the FCEV’s rear-wheel fairings cool, punching them out to make room for what looks like a pair of big intakes. Clever use of black plastic in the rocker-panel area gives the impression that the main body tucks behind the rear wheels and tapers to nearly a point at the tip of the rear spoiler. Beneath that blade-like spoiler, Honda aggressively tucked the bodywork under the car to create an extreme take on the traditional “Kamm tail.” For all the FCEV’s futurism, nothing about it looks terribly unfeasible for production. The car’s body panels are actually rather simple overall, and it appears to be merely a set of proper roof rails, door handles, and windshield wipers away from customers’ driveways.

Stacks on Stacks on Stacks

Honda is keeping most of the FCEV concept’s powertrain details secret, but the automaker did outline how the fuel-cell goods are fit into the car. Fuel-cell vehicles have a lot of large components, including an electric motor, a pressurized hydrogen tank, and the electricity-producing fuel-cell stack. (Read how this stuff works in our comprehensive hydrogen how-to here.) In most fuel-cell vehicles, the tank eats up a good portion of trunk space, while the fuel-cell stacks typically cut into floor or trunk volume; in Honda’s own FCX Clarity, for example, the stacks live between the front seats, resulting in a tall center console that eliminates the center rear-seat position. In a triumph of packaging, at least according to Honda, the FCEV’s fuel-cell stacks are incorporated fully into what would be the engine bay in a conventional car. Reducing the fuel-cell stack size by 33 percent relative to the FCX Clarity helped grease its fitment in the front of the FCEV, and it didn’t come with a reduction in output. At 100 kW, Honda claims the FCEV’s power system is 60 percent more power-dense than the FCX Clarity’s, and should be capable of 300 miles of driving range.

Freeing the FCEV’s passenger cell of the task of housing powertrain components preserves cabin space and provides for a more flexible vehicle architecture. As a result, the FCEV seats five, and the isolation of the electric motor and fuel-cell stack gives Honda the potential to apply the technology to “varying vehicle types in the future.” Honda did not, it seems, find a new method for incorporating the huge hydrogen tank into the FCEV, since it appears to swallow all of the space immediately behind the rear seats; still, the car’s elongated tail should make room for a usable trunk.

While Honda cleverly tackled the packaging challenges with this sort of powertrain, it hasn’t solved hydrogen-fueled cars’ other major shortcoming: the distinct lack of filling stations. And that’s true even in gung-ho California, where the production FCEV is likely to be sold or leased exclusively. Automakers are eagerly trying to meet the hydrogen future sooner rather than later, but their efforts are outpacing the necessary hydrogen infrastructure expansion. (At the L.A. show, Hyundai debuted its hydrogen Tucson, and Toyota will be rolling out a new fuel-cell car for 2015.) At least the FCEV is about 100 times more interesting to behold than the generic FCX Clarity, which sort of resembled a Honda Insight with a gland problem, and we hope the 2015 production version carries over most of this look intact.

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